Proceedings of Indian Geotechnical Conference

December 15-17,2011, Kochi (Paper No. H-119)

SOIL STABILISATION WITH WASTE MATERIALS BASED BINDER

Anil Kumar Sharma, Research Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering, IISc, Bangalore, anilkr@civil.iisc.ernet.in
P.V.Sivapullaiah, Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, IISc, Bangalore, siva@civil.iisc.ernet.in
ABSTRACT: This paper describes a laboratory trial to study the effectiveness of a waste-based binder to stabilize
expansive soils. The proposed binders viz., Fly ash and/or Ground granulated Blast furnace slag (GGBS) were mixed with
the expansive soil along with a small amount of lime to increase soil pH and enable pozzolanic reactions. The geotechnical
characteristics of the various combinations of samples were investigated through the compaction tests, unconfined
compression tests etc. It was found that the addition of GGBS with and without fly ash and lime has significant influence
on the geotechnical characteristics of the soil.

INTRODUCTION
Expansive soils are those soils which show major volume
changes due to change in the moisture content causing
major damage to property. These soils contain minerals
such as montmorillonite clays that are capable of absorbing
water. When they absorb water they increase in volume.
The more water they absorb the more their volume.
Although mechanical compaction, dewatering and earth
reinforcement have been found to improve the strength of
the soils, other methods like stabilization using admixtures
are more advantageous. The different admixtures available
are lime, cement, fly ash, blast furnace slag etc. The
stabilization of expansive soils with Cement and lime is
well documented [13, 3]. Cement stabilization nowadays is
less appreciated because of the increasing cost of cement
and environmental concerns related to its production. India
being the second largest producer of cement has a very
heavy impact on the CO2 emissions. One can imagine from
the fact that approximately one tone of CO2 is produced
during the production of one tone of cement. On the other
hand lime also contributes CO2 to the world climate during
its production. Moreover lime is not suitable for soils which
contain sulfates as the presence of sulfates can increase the
swelling due to the formation of swelling minerals such as
ettringite and thaumasite [10]. With this growing evidence
the requirement to find alternatives to Cement and lime has
been made more pressing in recent years. The focus is on
the use of the industrial materials like Fly ash and Ground
Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBS). Fly ash is a
byproduct from burning pulverized coal in electric power
generating plants. GGBS is manufactured from blast
furnace slag, a by-product from the manufacture of iron.
GGBS is obtained by quenching molten iron blast furnace
slag immediately in water or stream, to produce a glassy
granular product that is then dried and ground into a fine
powder. It is an excellent binder to produce high
performance cement and concrete. As industrial waste
materials have little or no production cost, using these
materials in the field of Geotechnical Engineering saves
construction cost. The beneficial use of these industrial
413

waste materials is not only the promising solutions to

reduce the disposal problem but also reduces the demand of
cement thereby reducing the CO2 emissions.
Scope and present work
The main objective of the paper is to investigate the
potential of using industrial materials in the field of
Geotechnical engineering. A lot of research has been done
on fly ash for the stabilization of expansive soils. Cokca [2]
has studied the effect of fly ash on the properties of
expansive soil prepared in the laboratory using kaolinite and
bentonite. He has recommended that fly ashes can be used
as effective stabilizing agents for improvement of expansive
soils. Pandian [7] conducted laboratory CBR tests on the
stabilized fly ash-soil mixtures and found that fly is an
effective admixture for improving the soil quality.
Sridharan [11] has studied the effect of fly ash on the
unconfined compressive strength of Black Cotton soils
found in India which is typically an expansive soil. They
have suggested that the strength of BC soil is altered by
significantly by two distinct mechanisms namely
pozzolanic reactions which increase the strength and the
reduction in cohesive strength of clayey soils by the silty
nature of the fly ash particles. Nalbantoglu [5] investigated
the effect of Class C fly ash on expansive soil and shown
that there is an improvement in the plasticity characteristics
of the expansive soil with the addition of fly ash. But many
fly ashes often improve their strength with lime but may not
meet the requirements. Hence the strength of fly ash mixture
often needs to be enhanced for its better utilization in
geotechnical and environmental applications. Also only few

studies have been done to check the effectiveness of GGBS

in Black cotton Soils (BC soils).Hence to study the effect of
GGBS on BC soils laboratory compaction and strength tests
has been done on the stabilized GGBS-BC soil mixtures.
Hence research work presented on this paper is mainly
concentrated on the stabilization of BC soil with GGBS and
enhancing the cementituos properties of Fly ash with
GGBS.

Anil Kumar Sharma and P.V.Sivapullaiah

MATERIALS USED
Black Cotton Soil
The BC soil was obtained from Belgaum district of
Karnataka state in India. It is an expansive soil which
contains montmorillonite as the major mineral. Soil is
collected from a depth of 1 m below the natural ground
level by open excavation. The soil was dried and sieved
through 425 micron IS sieve before its use in experimental
studies.
Ground Granulated Blast Furnace Slag (GGBS)
The GGBS used is collected from the concrete industry
which they use it for partial replacement of cement in the
manufacture of concrete.
Fly ash
The Fly ash used in the experimental studies is collected
from the Raichur Thermal Power plant which is in Raichur
district of Karnataka state, India.
The physical properties of BC soil, GGBS, Fly ash used in
the study are listed in Table 1. Grain size analysis of BC
soil, GGBS and Fly ash are shown in Table 2.
Table 1 Physical property of BC soil, Fly ash and GGBS
BC
Fly
Properties
soil
ash
GGBS
Specific gravity

2.61

2.01

2.83

Liquid limit: %

76

31.34

31.5

Plastic limit: %

35

NP

NP

Plasticity index: %
Shrinkage limit: %
Modified Free swell
index:cm/g

41
10

NP
-

NP
-

4.22

33

22

26

13.56

12.83

12.74

OMC: %
MDD (kN/m)

Sridharan [12] were performed on the GGBS-BC soil

mixtures at different GGBS-soil ratios. A premeasured
amount of GGBS, measured as percent of dry soil by
weight, was mixed thoroughly to produce a homogenous
GGBS-soil mixture. Water was added slowly during
mixing. The samples were then compacted in 38.1 mm
diameter moulds. The compaction tests were done on BC
soil alone, GGBS alone and on the soil-GGBS mixtures in
weight proportions of 4:1, 3:2 and 2:3.
Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS)
Compressive strength is one of the most important
geotechnical properties that a material like GGBS must
possess when being considered for the stabilization of soils.
The unconfined compressive strength (UCS) varies with the
GGBS-soil mixing ratio and water content. Hence the UCS
test was done on the soil-GGBS mixtures in different
proportions. The samples for UCS test of height 7.6 cm and
diameter 3.8 cm were prepared by statically compacting the
mixtures in the mould to their respective maximum dry
density at corresponding optimum water content. The
samples were then cured for different time periods in
desiccators. UCS test conducted on Fly ash alone showed
that the strength achieved is very less even for the 28 days
curing period. So an attempt to enhance its strength
characteristics UCS testing was done for the different FlyGGBS mixtures. The unconfined compressive strength test
as per the standard method [1] was then done on the cured
samples at the end of the required curing period. A constant
strain rate of 0.061 cm/min was maintained for all the
samples.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Compaction Characteristics
The results of the dry unit weight as a function of GGBSsoil mixtures and moisture contents are shown in Fig. 1.

Table 2 Grain size analysis

Constituent

BC soil

GGBS

Fly ash

Clay content (%)

40

0.7

Silt content (%)

54

23

Fine sand content (%)

76.3

96.67

CH

1.33

Soil classification
METHODOLOGY

Compaction studies
The unit weight of GGBS-soil mixture is an important
parameter because it controls the strength, compressibility,
and permeability. Densification improves engineering
properties [8]. Mini Compaction tests designed by

Fig. 1 Moisture density relationship of GGBS-soil mixtures

Table 3 summarizes the optimum moisture content (OMC)
and maximum dry density (MDD) of the different GGBS414

Soil Stabilization with waste materials based binder

soil mixtures.
It is interesting to note that both OMC and MDD decrease
with increase in the GGBS content. Generally addition of
silt or sand to fine grained soil decreases OMC and
increases MDD. Similarly Fly ash addition has been
reported to decrease the optimum moisture content and
increase maximum dry density [9].
Table 3 Summary of GGBS- Soil mixture (OMC and
MDD)
GGBS-Soil Mixture
OMC (%)
MDD (gm/cc)
BC soil alone

33.00

1.386

20% GGBS

31.00

1.382

40% GGBS

29.00

1.370

60% GGBS

27.50

1.364

GGBS alone

26.00

1.316

The decrease in OMC is obviously due to the addition of

GGBS which is relatively coarser relative to BC soil.
Addition of coarser particles reduces the water holding
capacity due to the reduction of the clay content. The
decrease in MDD, in spite of increase in OMC, is due to the
predominant effect of high frictional resistance offered by
relatively coarser GGBS due to size and surface texture
resisting the compactive effort effectively.

due to decrease water content. Further the moulding

densities are also lower with increasing GGBS content. It is
clear from Table 3 that the both the moulding water and
density are lower for soil GGBS mixtures. With GGBS
content higher than 40% all the effect of decreased
moulding water content and density dominate and the
strength decrease. Thus the effect of pozzolanic reactions is
nullified by lower densities and water contents. The 28 day
curing period shows higher strength which means that the
UCS increases with higher curing periods.

Fig. 2 Variation of UCS of BC soil with GGBS content

(ii) Fly ash-GGBS Mixtures

Unconfined Compressive Strength

(i) Soil-GGBS Mixtures
The variation of the unconfined compressive strength test
with GGBS content for different curing periods has been
shown in the Fig 2. From the figure it can be seen that the
unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of BC soil
increases with the addition of small amount of about GGBS
which remains constant up about 40% addition of GGBS.
With further addition of GGBS the UCS decreases
continuously and reaches lowest value with the addition of
90% of GGBS.
The variations in strength can be explained by the following
factors:
1. Reduction in cohesion of the soil due to addition
of coarser materials
2. Increase in strength of soil due to cementation by
pozzolanic compounds produced
3. The effect of compaction parameters as the soil
GGBS mixtures are compacted to their respective
optimum conditions.
4. Occupation of GGBS particles by finer soil
particles.
The reduction in cohesion of soil is least with the addition
of 10% of GGBS because of soil particle cohesion is
disturbance is minimum which however increases with
increasing GGBS content. With increase in GGBS content
the available pozzolanic material i.e. GGBS increases but
the available water for pozzolanic reactions becomes less
415

Fig. 3 Variation of UCS of Fly ash with GGBS content

The variation of UCS of Fly ash with different GGBS
content but without lime is shown in Fig 3. It can be seen
from the figure that the gain in strength of the Fly ashGGBS mixtures is extremely good for the 7 day curing
period. The strength increased from 62 kPa to 540 kPa with
addition of 50% of GGBS. The relationship found between
the unconfined compressive strength of the Fly ash with
GGBS content is linear with a discontinuity in between 20
to 30 % of the GGBS content. The discontinuity may be
due to the disturbance caused to development of soil matrix
and also by unfavourable gradation of Fly ash-GGBS
mixtures.

Anil Kumar Sharma and P.V.Sivapullaiah

Fig 4.shows the variation of UCS of Fly ash with different
percentages of GGBS at lime content of 2 and 4 % for 7
day curing period. It can be seen from the figure that with
the addition of lime has further improved the UCS of the
Fly ash GGBS mixtures. One interesting point can be
noticed from this figure that the discontinuity which occurs
in the variation of UCS strength with GGBS content
(between 20% and 30% GGBS content without lime is
eliminated with the addition of lime.
It means the disturbance is balanced by the formation of
further pozzolanic compounds in the presence of lime.
Further the strength achieved is higher at still lower GGBS
content. The relationship between the strength variations of
Fly ash-GGBS mixtures is almost linear.
Increase in strength of Fly ash with addition of GGBS can
be explained with two reasons: Firstly, the formation of
compounds (C-S-H gel) possessing cementing properties in
the presence of highly reactive siliceous and aluminous
materials and water and secondly addition of GGBS to Fly
ash makes the mix well graded which in turn increases the
compacted density and hence the mechanical strength of the
compacted mixture.

Fig. 3 Variation of UCS of Fly ash with GGBS content

along with lime
CONCLUSIONS
Based on the findings of the present investigation, the
following conclusions can be drawn:
1. Both OMC and MDD decreased with the addition of
GGBS to the BC soil. This is due to predominant effects of
reduced clay content and increased frictional resisting
respectively.
2. It is observed that the strength of the soil-GGBS mixtures
increase with curing period.
3. The UCS of the Fly ash-GGBS mixture increases with
the increase in the GGBS content.
4. Almost a linear relationship is found between the
unconfined compressive strength of the Fly ash-GGBS
mixture and the GGBS content with a discontinuity
between 20 to 30% of the GGBS content.
416

5. Enhancing the cementituos properties of Fly ash without

the addition of lime is a good signal for the increase in
utilization rate of the industrial wastes.
6. The reduction in strength in the Fly ash-GGBS mixtures
is overcome by addition of lime.
Based on the results of this research, it appears that BC soil
is effectively stabilised with the addition of GGBS. Fly ashGGBS mixtures are suitable for use in highway
embankments and it can provide fill materials of
comparable strength to most soils.
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